2003 Chevy Avalanche (why? because no one else does!) with 6″ suspension lift by Rough Country, Fuel Driller 2 Piece 20×12 wheels with -44 offsets (4.76″ backspacing). Rear wheels also received 1.5″ spacers to get the rears to match up with the front after the lift. 33″x12.5″ Federal Couragia M/T tires. 4 Gallons of Plastidip from DipYourCar.com using their pro-kit for an SUV. (Would have added sprayed on the remaining gallon if we could do it over again.) 20″ light bar added behind the grill from www.offroadledbars.com and 50″ will be mounted over the windshield about the A-line, soon. All new HID lighting and LEDs throughout. VHT night shades lightly added to tails and corners.

As you probably know by now we went pretty extreme on the body of the Avalanche. We figured everyone gives the poor truck a hard time for being plastic so we added some heavy duty hardware. Our look was mad max with a little touch of cencal style.

For the hardware we wanted it to pop but we also wanted it to flow with the truck. So rather than clear the bolts (plan A) we decided to go black metallic. They are the only thing on the truck with metallic flake paint.

We left the front grill studs as stainless steel so they would really jump out.

Then it was time for some decals. We are just getting started as we plan to add sponsors as we get them. (email customoffsets@gmail.com if interested)

Sorry we got a little behind giving the play by play of our build but things got a little crazy trying to make our first show.

We decided to go for and and ordered the pro car kit for a Full size truck or SUV for like $450 from www.dipyourcar.com. The kit came with an electric air sprayer (basically a mini shop vac that blows rather than sucks, into a gun so you end up with an air sprayer). A roll of painter’s tape, a chamois style rag to wash the dip after the fact, a microfiber cloth for prep, and 5 gallons of already thinned plastidip.

We have never painted anything bigger than a wheel so the whole process was watching a lot of youtube videos and just plain luck. We set up shop in my buddies garage and hoped for the best.

We washed the entire truck the night before. We realized half way through we still should have blown out all door handles, mirrors and other crevices. Anywhere there was still water we ran into issues while spraying.

Then we taped up the entire truck. You don’t have to tape the lights and windows but it saves on product if you do. We also bagged the wheels because we had to protect our precious Custom Offsets! Here is what she looked like.

You will notice at the top of the windshield we left room for a big ole’ visor so the truck would have matching plastidip visor. First time it rained a little going down the highway the visor was laying in the ditch, not worth trying.

Then we got busy!

We started by putting 7 coats on the roof.

Here is a little footage of our founder (remember this is his first time with a spray gun) painting the entire truck. The whole truck was done with 7 coats, 4 gallons of dip.

Here is a shot of it just as we finished up with paint.

See our next post to see the finishing touches as we add the “hardware”, peel the dip of the lights and windows, and put some decals on her.

So today we got the truck back from adding the rear wheel spacers 1.5″ added to the rear to get them flush with the fronts. Looks great, glad we decided to square everything up. We thought by having the same -44 offset all the way around we should be good but it seems the Rough Country 6″ lift does push the front tires out about 1.5″ or 40mm more so we added the spacers.

We also had the alignment done and we are experiencing a left hand pull and it seems no one can figure out why. We are going to just watch the tire wear, and if we see an issue, back to the shop she goes.

In the mean time we mocked up the exhaust tip. The goal is this:

To get started we ran the exhaust straight out to the license plate opening, straight pipe of course! Now she has a little growl and just needs a tip.

So we stopped by a local metal shop and they asked we mock it up. So here is what we have after a couple chunks of cardboard and duct tape were combined with a toilet paper roll. Should be pretty close to exact dimensions and shape.

It will actually be pushed through the opening (once we make it a much larger opening) and then sit almost flush and look more like this from behind the truck.

Next step is to hope we can afford to have it custom made, we will find out tomorrow!

We got a lot of feedback from our Facebook followers and the strongest message was that they don’t want the Custom Offsets truck to sport the stock running boards. Sooo, we ditched them!

As you can imagine a 10 year old Wisconsin winter truck has plenty of rust on the undercarriage so we knew the running board brackets were going to be a treat, and they were! Total time was about an hour, including the time to clean up the areas we damaged breaking off the old bracket bolts that were rusted on.

Here is a shot of mid-way through the passenger side. You can see 2 brackets cooperated but the other 2 felt the wrath of a rubber mallet and our trusty 4 1/2″ grinder.

And after we won the battle.

All together it was a total of 16 bolts however each one had to be cleaned and then the tightest socket we could fit was pounded on to the bolt because the rust caused each bolt to vary by 3 sizes! In the end only 3 small bolts stripped and had to be cut free. Not too bad… here she is looking just the way you asked her to look.

As an added bonus we went after the spare tire that has been hanging under the bed of the truck for 10 years. Of course the winch was frozen so it would only drop 6″s then freeze up (the secondary safety system was a primary pain in our ass). The approach here got interesting. We decided there was just enough room to crawl on top of the spare tire and unbolt the whole winch assembly. Then we just used some creative engineering to lift the spare and unhooked the other side of the winch and the whole works came crashing down.

And now we have a spare with a winch forever attached to it, but that’s okay because we wouldn’t go down a highway with this rusted rim!

All and all a very successful day removing the factory running boards and the factory spare tire and winch. Which makes room for our custom exhaust! Next up is the install of our “laying around” version of a stereo.

So with our 6″ rough country lift the 33″x 12.5″ Federal Couragia tires hit pretty good on the front and rear corners on the front wheel housings. We are taking the old fashion, pull out a 4 1/2″ grinder and make the rubbing go away!

We simply marked the fenders just inside the metal support bars and marked where the lugs where hitting both front and back and went to town. When we went to pick up some supplies we noted the price, if you need to buy a grinder, they are $29.99 for this one. (Fun Fact)

Our approach was to simply cut the notches out that we needed for clearance. So we removed the fender liner screws at the locations of where we were going to cut, plus one extra so we could pull the plastic out and cut behind it a bit.

Then we just angled the cut on both front and back and used the flat of the disk to do the best we could to smooth the angle.

Before paint we will try to come up with something to install to clean up the look inside the wheel liner now where we cut it away. Either a filler of some sort or just lay thin sheet metal in as a splash guard to give it a finished look. Any suggestions? We will take them.

Next step, since it’s too cold to paint or do anything super cool… either install our “starter” stereo or pull of those running boards.

Feel free to comment here or www.facebook.com/customoffsets and let us know what you think. We will build the rest of the truck in the next 6 weeks so now is your chance to influence it!

This one puts the light bar up top, decal down low on the windshield, and no grill hardware.

This one moves the LED Light bar to the bumper, adds hardware to the grill and moves the Custom Offsets sticker to the top of the window.

One more with a Winch, no fender bolts just grill, and added some of our sponsors on the rear.

Feel free to share any thoughts or ideas. For the hardware I plan to buy large stainless bolts and drill them right into the plastic and metal of the fenders so they are pretty forever. The cO decal on the site would have the look alike bolts to flow. The front grill emblem will be a cut out that is hand painted to stand out just a little from the grill. Paint is all black plastidip, flat black that is.

Here is a pic we found of an actual dipped Avalanche in all flat black to give you an idea of the real deal.

Truck turned out great. With the Rough Country 6″ lift we would like to push the rear tires out flush with the front tires, pretty typical, so we are adding 1.5″ spacers to the rear tires. COMING SOON!

See all the pics and specs on our gallery page!!MORE TO COME stay tuned!